Smell something rotten this weekend? That’s the stench of a sarcophagus that never should have been opened! The Mummy reboot, the first of Universal’s action-oriented “Dark Universe” monster franchise, is opening in theaters this weekend amid a slew of poor critical reviews and low box office predictions. Based on early indicators, this movie’s dropping faster than Tom Cruise’s plane featured in the movie’s zero-gravity stunt!

Taking into account of 178 critical reviews at the time of this writing, the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score for The Mummy is currently sitting at an embarrassing 17%. It only gets worse when examining the site’s “Top Critics” score… the Tomatometer plummets to just 8%! The content of the reviews aren’t any better. Multiple critics refer to the film as the worst movie of Tom Cruise’s career in their reviews. Many more simply refer to the movie as “a mess.” This kind of reception doesn’t exactly inspire moviegoers to race to the multiplex.

Early box office performance for the film indicates that the movie will suffer financially due to all of those poor reviews. Variety reports that The Mummy earned $2.7 million during Thursday previews. This return is an early predictor of a particularly soft opening weekend. To put it into perspective, Wonder Woman earned $11 million during last week’s Thursday previews and it ultimately debuted to a $103 million opening weekend. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales earned $5.5 million on its first Thursday, and it ended up achieving nearly $63 million by the end of the weekend. Most analysts are pegging the movie’s cumulative weekend haul anywhere between $32-40 million. Frankly, even that may be high. Recent stinkers with poor critical reviews have bomber harder during this summer season. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword only managed to earn $15.3 million during its opening weekend after debuting to a Tomatometer score of 28%.

To add insult to injury, Wonder Woman has been earning about $2 million more per weekday than most other recent superhero films in the past week, and it shows no signs of slowing down. It will absolutely pull viewers away from The Mummy this weekend, as it is expected to earn the top slot for the second weekend in a row.

With a budget of $125 million, Universal is likely hoping for a much greater haul at the domestic box office for The Mummy. Fortunately for the studio, analysts are predicting that international fans will gobble up many more tickets than American moviegoers. The movie is expected to earn anywhere between $125-150 million at the international box office this weekend, largely in part to markets like China.

Even if the international box office saves the film from being a major financial bomb, the critical and financial reception stateside will likely affect how Universal continues to shape its “Dark Universe” franchise. Stay tuned to Horror News Network for more details on the performance of The Mummy and the future of the “Dark Universe” as it breaks!

John has loved movie monsters for as far back as he can remember. He's since collected up as many comics, statues, and autographed material related to movies and music that he can get his hands on. He is particularly interested in the critical and analytical discussion of the best stories the horror genre has to offer. One of his largest works on the topic is a study on the portrayals of people with disabilities in horror films.